Decoder with Nilay Patel

By The VergeBusiness Technology

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Decoder with Nilay Patel episodes

April 03, 2025What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity
Today, we’re diving head first into the AI art debate, which to be honest, is an absolute mess. If you’ve been on the internet this past week, you’ve seen the Studio Ghibli memes. These images are everywhere — and they’ve widened an already pretty stark rift between AI boosters and critics.

Brian Merchant, author of the newsletter and book Blood in the Machine, wrote one of the best analyses of the Ghibli trend last week. So I invited him onto the show not only to discuss this particular situation, but also to help me dissect the ongoing AI art debate more broadly.

Links:
OpenAI's Studio Ghibli meme factory is an insult to art itself | Brian Merchant
Seattle engineer’s Ghibli-style image goes viral | Seattle Times
OpenAI just raised another $40 billion round from SoftBank | Verge
ChatGPT “added one million users in the last hour.” | Verge
ChatGPT’s Ghibli filter is political now, but it always was | Verge
OpenAI, Google ask the government to let them train on content they don’t own | Verge
Studio Ghibli in the age of A.I. reproduction | Max Read
OpenAI has a Studio Ghibli problem | Vergecast
AI slop is a brute force attack on the algorithms that control reality | 404 Media
The New Aesthetics of Fascism | New Socialist

Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
56 min
March 31, 2025How Unity CEO Matt Bromberg stopped the ‘war’ against its customers
Unity is one of those hidden in plain sight companies we love here on Decoder, and CEO Matt Bromberg is in many ways the perfect Decoder guest. He's been on the job less than a year and took over in a moment of crisis. He describes the company as being "at war with its customers" before he joined, and he's not wrong.

The game industry right now is also contracting overall — studios are closing, and some big bets on things like the metaverse and live service games haven’t paid off. So we talked about all that, and where Matt sees growth ahead: Unity isn’t just a game engine provider, but the platform for everything from running those big live services and the monetization on top of them.

Links:
Unity’s struggles continue with fresh wave of layoffs | The Verge
Unity attempts to turn things around with latest game engine release | The Verge
Unity has eliminated its controversial runtime fee | The Verge
‘We want to be a fundamentally different and better company’ | IGN
John Riccitiello is out at Unity, effective immediately | The Verge
Unity is laying off 25% of its staff | The Verge
Unity cancels town hall over reported death threats | The Verge
Unity has changed its pricing model and developers are pissed off | The Verge
Toyota chooses Unity for next-generation interface | Unity

Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 11 min
March 27, 2025Capitalism vs. the bird flu
Today we’re talking about bird flu, but in a pretty Decoder way. Science journalist Lauren Leffer, who recently wrote a piece for The Verge about bird flu and how it’s becoming a forever war, is joining me on the show. We’re going to talk about the systems, structure, and culture that might control bird flu — and those that might make it worse.

Links:
We’ve entered a forever war with bird flu | Verge
Kennedy’s alarming prescription for bird flu on poultry farms | NYT
First bird flu death in US reported in Louisiana | NYT
Bird flu found in sheep in UK, a world first | NYT
Shell shocked: how small eateries are dealing with record egg prices | NYT
Animal Farm: eggflation’s monopoly problem | The Lever
At the ‘Wall Street of Eggs,’ Demand Is Surging | WSJ
How to protect your pets from bird flu | Popular Science
What to know about the bird flu outbreak in wild birds | AP
Bird flu continues to spread as Trump experts are MIA | Ars Technica

Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
46 min
March 24, 2025Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava on why push-button AI is “insulting” to musicians
Today, I’m talking with Kakul Srivastava, CEO of music creation platform Splice, which is one of the biggest marketplaces around for loops and samples. You can just go sign up, pay the money, and download these loops to try to make pop hits all day long. Take, for instance, Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso, which was composed almost entirely out of Splice loops.

Now, if you’re a Decoder listener, you know that some of my favorite conversations are with people building technology products for creatives, and that I am obsessed with how technology changes the music industry, because it feels like whatever happens to music happens to everything else five years later. So this one was really interesting, because Splice is all wrapped in all of that.

Links:
Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso highlights the way new music is made | Bloomberg
Major record labels sue AI company behind ‘BBL Drizzy’ | Verge
Splice CEO’s message for AI sceptics? “Trust the artists” | MusicTech
Splice launches voice recording on Splice Mobile at SXSW | Splice
OpenAI & Google ask government to let them train AI on content they don’t own | Verge
AI Drake just set an impossible legal trap for Google | Verge
Pharrell Williams: $7.3 million Blurred Lines verdict threatens all artists | Verge
Lady Gaga, nostalgia, and the ‘reheated nachos’ phenomenon in pop culture | Her World
AI music startups say copyright violation is just rock and roll | Verge
Suno CEO says musicians don’t actually like making music | Vice

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/632036

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 7 min
March 20, 2025The movement to take down Tesla
Today we're talking about the Tesla Takedown protest movement, which has emerged as a way for people to express how deeply unhappy they are with Elon Musk installing himself as a not-so-shadow president who is tearing the federal government apart, leaving confusion and destruction in his wake.

Tesla's stock price is sinking, new car registrations and down, and hype around the company is fading rapidly. There's an opportunity there for the protestors, and I asked Ed Niedermeyer on the show to help me pull it all apart.

Links:
Is Tesla cooked? | Verge
Elon Musk Has Become Too Toxic for YouTube | New York Magazine
‘Tesla Takedown’ wants to hit Elon Musk where it hurts | Verge
The Tesla protests are getting bigger — and rowdier | Verge
‘Tesla Takedown’ protesters planning ‘biggest day of action’ | Verge
Tesla registrations — and public opinion — are in a free fall | Verge
Multiple Teslas set on fire in Las Vegas and Kansas City | Verge
Mark Rober’s Tesla video was more than a little weird | Verge
Tesla sales fell year-over-year for the first time | Verge
The cybertruck isn’t all it’s cracked up to be | Verge
Tesla autopilot, FSD linked to hundreds of crashes, dozens of deaths | Verge
Tesla crash victims’ families worried about Musk influence on investigations | Verge

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
48 min
March 17, 2025How Trump's tariff chaos is already changing global trade
I'm talking to Evan Smith, who started Altana in 2019 because he predicted the first wave of globalized manufacturing and trade would end, and that companies would want new powerful tools to adapt their supply chains as the world grew more complex. Here in 2025, that looks like a pretty good bet — even if the way it's playing out is more stressful and chaotic than anyone really wants it to be.

There are some big, unsettling ideas here, but talking about them directly and with clarity at least made me feel like I had a framework to understand the endless on-again, off-again news cycle on tariffs and trade.

Links:
Globalization 2.0 Manifesto | Altana
The ‘giant sucking sound’ of NAFTA | The Conversation
‘Offensive Realism’: The never-ending struggle for power | American Diplomacy (2002)
Foreign Affairs Big Mac I | NYT (1996)
The end of the Golden Arches Doctrine | Financial Times
Trump could scale back tariffs, Lutnick says | CNBC
China joined rule-based trading system — then broke the rules | Politico
Open Source and China: Inverting Copyright? | Wisconsin International Law Journal
How the US lost out on iPhone work | NYT

Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 8 min
March 13, 2025Why the Take It Down Act is a not a law, but a weapon
Today, I’m talking to Verge policy editor Adi Robertson about a bill called the Take It Down Act, which is one in a long line of bills that would make it illegal to distribute non-consensual intimate imagery, or NCII. This is a real and devastating problem on the internet, and AI is just making it worse.

But Adi just wrote a long piece arguing that giving the Trump administration new powers over speech in this way would be a mistake. So in this episode, Adi and I really get into the details of the Take it Down Act, how it might be weaponized, and why we ultimately can’t trust anything the Trump administration says about wanting to solve this problem.

Links:
The Take It Down Act isn’t a law, it’s a weapon | Verge
A bill combatting the spread of AI deepfakes just passed the Senate | Verge
Welcome to the era of gangster tech regulation | Verge
FTC workers are getting terminated | Verge
Bluesky deletes AI protest video of Trump sucking Musk's toes | 404 Media
Trump supports Take It Down Act so he can silence critics | EFF
Scarlett Johansson calls for deepfake ban after AI video goes viral | Verge
The FCC is a weapon in Trump’s war on free speech | Decoder
Trolls have flooded X with graphic Taylor Swift AI fakes | Verge
Teen girls confront an epidemic of deepfake nudes in schools | NYT

Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
49 min
March 10, 2025Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour on AI, press freedom, and the future of news
Almar Latour is the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and also CEO of its parent company, Dow Jones — itself a part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Almar's been with the paper since the 90s, and now he's got insight into all the modern messes. He's made a big deal with OpenAI, while also suing Perplexity — all while building his own AI data products for Dow Jones customers.

He's also a strong defender of press freedom who fought to have Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich released from Russia after being imprisoned for more than a year — while News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch famously has deep ties to Trump and has overseen a vastly polarized and politicized era of news media.

Links:
Here are the WSJ journalists whose jobs were eliminated | Talking Biz News
OpenAI, WSJ parent strike content deal valued at over $250M | Wall Street Journal
News Corp sues Perplexity for ripping off WSJ, New York Post | The Verge
Dow Jones negotiates AI usage rights with 4,000 publishers | Nieman Lab
Rupert Murdoch joins Trump in Oval Office | The Hollywood Reporter
WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich is free | Wall Street Journal
Trump sues Iowa newspaper and top pollster | Reuters
The FCC is a weapon in Trump’s war on free speech | The Verge
CBS considers caving on Trump lawsuit to save Skydance merger | The Verge
Why The Atlantic signed a deal with OpenAI | Decoder

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/626229

Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 5 min
March 06, 2025Flying is still safe, for now — but the FAA isn’t
So today I’m talking to Andy Hawkins, The Verge’s transportation editor, about what’s going on in the skies. Andy just edited a big piece for us by writer Darryl Campbell that helps put a lot of what’s happening in air travel right now in perspective. It has some very reassuring data points, but it also raises important questions about what we need to do next to reinstill confidence in air travel.

Andy and I talked about how safe it really is to fly right now — extremely safe, it turns out — and how the current air traffic systems might change for better and worse. And, of course, we talked about Elon Musk.

Links:
What’s the deal with all these airplane crashes? | Verge
How Elon Musk muscled his way into the FAA | Bloomberg
Elon Musk says upgrade of FAA’s air traffic control system is failing | CNN
FAA targeting Verizon contract in favor of Musk’s Starlink, sources say | WashPo
FAA officials ordered staff to find funding for Elon Musk’s Starlink | Rolling Stone
FAA announces ‘hiring supercharge’ for air traffic controllers | Forbes
Air traffic control trainees to get raise, in nod to cost of living | NYT
Some of the 400 jobs that were cut at the FAA helped support air safety | AP
DC plane crash marks first major commercial crash in US since 2009 | ABC
What the ATC controller sees | Flight Training Central

Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
41 min
March 03, 2025Amazon’s Panos Panay on the long road to Alexa’s AI overhaul
Panos Panay is in charge of devices and services at Amazon — that's everything from Alexa and Kindle to Ring, Eero, and even the Project Kuiper satellite internet service that's meant to compete with Starlink.
He's led the team through giving Alexa a big AI infusion which is what drew him to Amazon after nearly 20 years with Microsoft. Like so many folks in tech, he sees AI as a platform shift that will change the way we use computers.
Fair warning: We talk about Alexa a lot in this one, so you might want to go mute your Alexa device mics now.

Links:
With Alexa Plus, Amazon finally reinvents its best product | Verge
The future of the Kindle with Panos Panay | Vergecast
Amazon announces AI-powered Alexa Plus | Verge
All of the announcements from Amazon’s Alexa Plus event | Verge
Alexa Plus arrives with promise but plenty of questions | Verge
Amazon Leadership Principles | Amazon
How Amazon runs Alexa, with Dave Limp (2021) | Decoder
Alexa loses her voice | YouTube
Humane is shutting down the AI pin | Verge
Mike Krieger wants to build AI products that are worth the hype | Verge

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/621232

Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 hr 10 min

About Decoder with Nilay Patel

From the publisher's feed

Decoder is a show from The Verge about big ideas — and other problems. Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to a diverse cast of innovators and policymakers at the frontiers of business and…